July 2, 2012

We then surrounded the network with the cells that we would like to be fed by the blood vessels when the tissue is implanted - and once we have this structure of pipes-to-be and tissue, we dissolve away the sugar using water...

"We showed that you can use a 3D printer to print an arbitrary network of vessels for any tissue shape or any network of blood vessels, and then surround them with cells that you would like to create the organ out of" said Prof Bhatia.

Just imagine when organs can be easily replaced, and people only die from accidents. Will everyone hide in their homes afraid to go out? Safety is already tyrannical in our lives. I'm glad I lived before the great motivator and cosmic equalizer was slain.

I saw a presentation by a surgical resident at UC, Irvine about 10 years ago on methods of growing artificial organs. Liver is high on the list because it has a simple structure although it does have two circulations, artery and vein. It seems to survive pretty well with one. It grows very rapidly, especially in the young. I once did a 90% liver resection in a 16 year old trauma victim. We did a liver scan 3 weeks later and it was normal. The liver had regenerated.

They have already had limited success with regrowing organs. This new technology is not about growing an organ per se, but about a new scaffolding technique which enables structuring the cells to purpose and facilitating its removal.

Looking forward to curing many of the diseases that are related to organs and their failure. Then there is only cancer to worry about, and who knows how many tens of thousands of processes that can break down, go awry, etc.

It's like the human genome project. Just when you think you've made some major stride forward, you realize only how much you don't know.

Meanwhile, I can think of some practical applications, like giving chief justice Roberts a new brain.

Every time I read another report like this I get a little jolt of Schadenfreude for the CA voters who passed an initiative funding stem cell research, but prioritizing embryonic stem cell research. It passed on a wave of disapproval of Bush's then-recent decision to forbid Federal funding of research involving the destruction of embryos (as opposed to the use of existing cell lines).

Since then, so far as I can tell, every new development that looks promising has come from adult stem cell research. ESCR has quietly disappeared from the news altogether.

MIT was pioneering printing metal parts 25 years ago.It is now how some jet engine turbine blades are made.With the advance of vitreous metal(look it up) in a few years an auto parts store will consist of a printer and a pile of raw material.